in 1742 Thomas gray wrote ode on a
distant prospect of Eton College which
includes the famous phrase where
ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise
which in simple terms means what you
don’t know can’t hurt you hello
beautiful people my name is Rachel and
I’m gonna tell you story about how
ignorant impacted my life a few years
ago I ate lunches with my friends we
were talking about our heritage and
where our parents came from and I told
them how I was Nigerian and my parents
immigrated from Nigeria to New York they
eagerly asked me all of these questions
like are there elephants and lions
walking around over there are there
movie theaters and restaurants what do
your parents Hut’s look like in my mind
that was wondering where do these
questions even come from why do they
think Africa was just a big Lion King
movie and Mufasa might be by
next-door-neighbor I mean Africa is the
second largest continent in the world
with diverse countries that have areas
that look like this like this like this
and like this so it baffled me that they
had this narrow-minded idea what Africa
is but once I brought it to their
attention that they were ignorant on
this it opened this gateway of discovery
for them but what exactly is ignorant
ignorance is just lack of knowledge or
information and people usually people
usually associate the word ignorance
with negative connotations and feel
offended when called ignorant
let’s be real here nobody here wants to
be called out for not knowing things I
think I’m correct on that yeah it makes
us feel stupid and lowers our
self-esteem so as humans you want to
turn this lack of knowledge into an
abundance of knowledge and the reason we
hunger for this abundance is because our
brain is wired for novelty it is wired
to look into new things when we see
something new different unusual we can’t
help but look into it like that new kid
in your class a new movie coming out or
even a new album dropping soon we start
to familiarize ourselves with these new
things as a way of survival but there
may be some ideas that you just can’t
wrap a head your head around like why
that movie ended in a cliffhanger or the
message behind that new album so
ignorant comes in and generates this
curiosity that drives us to learn and
explore think of it like you’re on an
island the island of knowledge you are
next to the sea of ignorance as you
learn and discover new things the island
of knowledge grows which expands the
edges of the land this means that no
matter what you will always face the sea
of ignorance a subject that deals with
ignorance on a daily basis is science in
the mid-1980s doctor with a surgery
professor at the University of count of
Arizona created a course called
introduction to medical and other
ignorant a lot of people disagreed on
this course as they automatically
associated the word ignorance with
stupidity and people wanted her to at
least change the name but she wouldn’t
do it she wanted her students to
understand that knowledge has limits and
to appreciate the questions as much as
they appreciate the answers so
his ignorance bliss in this situation
well even though her students won’t know
everything about medicine
they found humility and discovered a lot
of questions that they can explore and
doctors questioning and finding unknowns
in medicine is beneficial to us as
elites a major breakthroughs regarding
complicated health issues let’s go back
to the brain for a second because the
brain is wired to learn new things
becoming aware of one’s ignorant can be
very exciting actually
remember those science projects that you
did in middle school well I was very
excited to do this
I wasn’t those kids who made a volcano
or mixed oil with water that was too
easy for me I was very extra with it and
a project that I loved the most was
finding out which public place had the
most bacteria so I went into I got
bacteria from a public restroom a
hospital McDonald’s and many other
places and even though I came up with a
conclusion I still had so many questions
and this excited me as it led to many
different possibilities that I could
take my project my hypothesis was that
the public restroom would have the most
bacteria but it turned out that the
hospital had the most so I could have
stuck with my hypothesis and that would
be the end of my project but I chose to
challenge it and it led to an exciting
surprise of a conclusion and many other
exciting questions I explored later on
so learning growing your island comes
from encountering questions and facing
now there may be some of you who may not
want to expand your Island and disregard
the sea of ignorance that you face due
to fear and even though this is
comfortable for you right now this could
eventually lead to you hurting yourself
and the people around you so this is
where so this type of ignorance can be
innocent or intentional so an innocent
example I think back to my friends and
how they thought Nigeria had wandering
animals and wasn’t worthy of movie
theaters and restaurants and it’s not
like they were trying to hurt my
feelings or put me down as they were
genuinely curious they were blissfully
living in their ignorance regarding
Nigeria and it frustrated me because I
knew what Nigeria is capable of and I
knew the beauty that Nigeria has it’s
those innocent microaggressions that
were unintentional but still hurt my
feelings nonetheless and I know that we
can’t know everything about everything
that’s impossible but we still don’t
want to hurt other people’s feelings at
the same time so when you make those
innocent mistakes all we can do is
understand where we’re at wrong and try
to learn from them as we grow as we grow
older we learn more about the harsh
realities of the world and intentionally
shut them out for our comfort this is
where intentional or willful ignorance
comes in a prime example is religion and
how because you are so invested in your
faith you disregard other ideas and
religions that might challenge your
belief being a Pentecostal Christian
ayah met many other Christians who had
negative assumptions on the LGBTQ
community I had held on to these
assumptions for a long time until I went
to a new school my sophomore year and
met many other students who are part of
the LGBTQ community instead of backing
away
I forced myself to listen to their
stories and became very empathetic
towards them I thought that if I was in
their position I would want to be heard
and have support just like any other
human being and your religion or your
sexuality should not affect the amount
of respect that you deserve another
example is feedback loops in the
Internet when we go on Facebook
Instagram or even the news we read and
look into topics that match our beliefs
we don’t branch out and look at a
different perspective of an event so
you’ll always stick to your favorite
news channel you always stick to your
favorite Facebook account and as you are
using these sources they’re telling you
what you want to hear and not what you
need to hear you think that you’re
getting the facts but each account each
channel shares their own opinion their
own perspective which furthers your
assumptions so when you meet someone
that has a different idea or perspective
of an event it usually leads to uncivil
conversations and people from different
sides attacking each other instead of
listening to each other
preventing their Island from expanding
has led to people feeling defensive when
faced with in has led to people feeling
defensive and abusing others when faced
with a different idea
events like Charlottesville the Orlando
shooting countless cases of police
brutality and so much more the ignorance
that these people had was definitely not
blissful for the people around them and
some of you may not even care about the
news at all and this unawareness of the
world could eventually lead to you
possibly offending others and the people
around you but we still don’t want to
let this harsh news consume us you know
we want to live our best lives we want
to have good vibes all around us that’s
just the way life works so how do we let
we self reflect on how the news affects
us and what the people going through out
event may be going through we take care
of ourselves so we have thought of the
event too deeply and so we won’t let the
harsh news consume us and then we take
action and try the remedy the event this
can be by voting advocating for what you
believe in or volunteering and even
though we have not solved the whole
issue we have turned that negative event
into something positive for ourselves
and the people around us so oh so is
ignorant truly bliss I’m gonna be
completely 100% honest with you there is
no straightforward answer to this
question depending on the situation you
are presented with ignorance can be a
gateway to discovery or it can lead to
problems for yourself and the people
around you and even though ignorant has
a simple definition it’s a very complex
idea as there are many different types
of ignorance educational ignorance
willful ignorance harmless ignorant
ignorant side effects Society and
ignorance that affects yourself and so
much more but the key is perspective be
open to putting yourself in
uncomfortable situations and digging a
little deeper into the knowledge that
you are presented with as Alfred
Tennyson once wrote this truth within
the mind rehearse that in a boundless
universe is a boundless better and a
boundless worse but in order to
understand this boundless universe we
have to be open and willing to sail the wide open sea thank you very much
distant prospect of Eton College which
includes the famous phrase where
ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise
which in simple terms means what you
don’t know can’t hurt you hello
beautiful people my name is Rachel and
I’m gonna tell you story about how
ignorant impacted my life a few years
ago I ate lunches with my friends we
were talking about our heritage and
where our parents came from and I told
them how I was Nigerian and my parents
immigrated from Nigeria to New York they
eagerly asked me all of these questions
like are there elephants and lions
walking around over there are there
movie theaters and restaurants what do
your parents Hut’s look like in my mind
that was wondering where do these
questions even come from why do they
think Africa was just a big Lion King
movie and Mufasa might be by
next-door-neighbor I mean Africa is the
second largest continent in the world
with diverse countries that have areas
that look like this like this like this
and like this so it baffled me that they
had this narrow-minded idea what Africa
is but once I brought it to their
attention that they were ignorant on
this it opened this gateway of discovery
for them but what exactly is ignorant
ignorance is just lack of knowledge or
information and people usually people
usually associate the word ignorance
with negative connotations and feel
offended when called ignorant
let’s be real here nobody here wants to
be called out for not knowing things I
think I’m correct on that yeah it makes
us feel stupid and lowers our
self-esteem so as humans you want to
turn this lack of knowledge into an
abundance of knowledge and the reason we
hunger for this abundance is because our
brain is wired for novelty it is wired
to look into new things when we see
something new different unusual we can’t
help but look into it like that new kid
in your class a new movie coming out or
even a new album dropping soon we start
to familiarize ourselves with these new
things as a way of survival but there
may be some ideas that you just can’t
wrap a head your head around like why
that movie ended in a cliffhanger or the
message behind that new album so
ignorant comes in and generates this
curiosity that drives us to learn and
explore think of it like you’re on an
island the island of knowledge you are
next to the sea of ignorance as you
learn and discover new things the island
of knowledge grows which expands the
edges of the land this means that no
matter what you will always face the sea
of ignorance a subject that deals with
ignorance on a daily basis is science in
the mid-1980s doctor with a surgery
professor at the University of count of
Arizona created a course called
introduction to medical and other
ignorant a lot of people disagreed on
this course as they automatically
associated the word ignorance with
stupidity and people wanted her to at
least change the name but she wouldn’t
do it she wanted her students to
understand that knowledge has limits and
to appreciate the questions as much as
they appreciate the answers so
his ignorance bliss in this situation
well even though her students won’t know
everything about medicine
they found humility and discovered a lot
of questions that they can explore and
doctors questioning and finding unknowns
in medicine is beneficial to us as
elites a major breakthroughs regarding
complicated health issues let’s go back
to the brain for a second because the
brain is wired to learn new things
becoming aware of one’s ignorant can be
very exciting actually
remember those science projects that you
did in middle school well I was very
excited to do this
I wasn’t those kids who made a volcano
or mixed oil with water that was too
easy for me I was very extra with it and
a project that I loved the most was
finding out which public place had the
most bacteria so I went into I got
bacteria from a public restroom a
hospital McDonald’s and many other
places and even though I came up with a
conclusion I still had so many questions
and this excited me as it led to many
different possibilities that I could
take my project my hypothesis was that
the public restroom would have the most
bacteria but it turned out that the
hospital had the most so I could have
stuck with my hypothesis and that would
be the end of my project but I chose to
challenge it and it led to an exciting
surprise of a conclusion and many other
exciting questions I explored later on
so learning growing your island comes
from encountering questions and facing
now there may be some of you who may not
want to expand your Island and disregard
the sea of ignorance that you face due
to fear and even though this is
comfortable for you right now this could
eventually lead to you hurting yourself
and the people around you so this is
where so this type of ignorance can be
innocent or intentional so an innocent
example I think back to my friends and
how they thought Nigeria had wandering
animals and wasn’t worthy of movie
theaters and restaurants and it’s not
like they were trying to hurt my
feelings or put me down as they were
genuinely curious they were blissfully
living in their ignorance regarding
Nigeria and it frustrated me because I
knew what Nigeria is capable of and I
knew the beauty that Nigeria has it’s
those innocent microaggressions that
were unintentional but still hurt my
feelings nonetheless and I know that we
can’t know everything about everything
that’s impossible but we still don’t
want to hurt other people’s feelings at
the same time so when you make those
innocent mistakes all we can do is
understand where we’re at wrong and try
to learn from them as we grow as we grow
older we learn more about the harsh
realities of the world and intentionally
shut them out for our comfort this is
where intentional or willful ignorance
comes in a prime example is religion and
how because you are so invested in your
faith you disregard other ideas and
religions that might challenge your
belief being a Pentecostal Christian
ayah met many other Christians who had
negative assumptions on the LGBTQ
community I had held on to these
assumptions for a long time until I went
to a new school my sophomore year and
met many other students who are part of
the LGBTQ community instead of backing
away
I forced myself to listen to their
stories and became very empathetic
towards them I thought that if I was in
their position I would want to be heard
and have support just like any other
human being and your religion or your
sexuality should not affect the amount
of respect that you deserve another
example is feedback loops in the
Internet when we go on Facebook
Instagram or even the news we read and
look into topics that match our beliefs
we don’t branch out and look at a
different perspective of an event so
you’ll always stick to your favorite
news channel you always stick to your
favorite Facebook account and as you are
using these sources they’re telling you
what you want to hear and not what you
need to hear you think that you’re
getting the facts but each account each
channel shares their own opinion their
own perspective which furthers your
assumptions so when you meet someone
that has a different idea or perspective
of an event it usually leads to uncivil
conversations and people from different
sides attacking each other instead of
listening to each other
preventing their Island from expanding
has led to people feeling defensive when
faced with in has led to people feeling
defensive and abusing others when faced
with a different idea
events like Charlottesville the Orlando
shooting countless cases of police
brutality and so much more the ignorance
that these people had was definitely not
blissful for the people around them and
some of you may not even care about the
news at all and this unawareness of the
world could eventually lead to you
possibly offending others and the people
around you but we still don’t want to
let this harsh news consume us you know
we want to live our best lives we want
to have good vibes all around us that’s
just the way life works so how do we let
we self reflect on how the news affects
us and what the people going through out
event may be going through we take care
of ourselves so we have thought of the
event too deeply and so we won’t let the
harsh news consume us and then we take
action and try the remedy the event this
can be by voting advocating for what you
believe in or volunteering and even
though we have not solved the whole
issue we have turned that negative event
into something positive for ourselves
and the people around us so oh so is
ignorant truly bliss I’m gonna be
completely 100% honest with you there is
no straightforward answer to this
question depending on the situation you
are presented with ignorance can be a
gateway to discovery or it can lead to
problems for yourself and the people
around you and even though ignorant has
a simple definition it’s a very complex
idea as there are many different types
of ignorance educational ignorance
willful ignorance harmless ignorant
ignorant side effects Society and
ignorance that affects yourself and so
much more but the key is perspective be
open to putting yourself in
uncomfortable situations and digging a
little deeper into the knowledge that
you are presented with as Alfred
Tennyson once wrote this truth within
the mind rehearse that in a boundless
universe is a boundless better and a
boundless worse but in order to
understand this boundless universe we
have to be open and willing to sail the wide open sea thank you very much
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